Latest North American Beaver Stories

A new study from the University of Alberta, published in a recent issue of Mammalian Biology, reveals that busy beavers help Canada geese get an earlier start when the birds fly home and begin nesting in the spring.

The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is a large semi-aquatic rodent native to Canada. Also it is native to most of the United States and parts of northern Mexico. Its fur is dark brown. It has a rounded head, a large flat paddle-shaped tail and webbed hind feet. The unwebbed front paws are smaller, with claws. This is the largest rodent found in North America and the second largest rodent in the world (the largest rodent being the South American capybara).
Beavers are mainly...

A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.